Arjuna asks
BHAGAVAD GĪTĀ · 4.4“Your birth was later… How then can I understand that you taught it in the beginning?”
Praśna No. 9
Kṛṣṇa answers
BHAGAVAD GĪTĀ · 4.5“Many of My births have passed, O Arjuna, as have yours. I know them all.”
You've been here before. He remembers.
Arjuna points out the obvious: Kṛṣṇa was born after the ancient teachers he claims to have taught. Kṛṣṇa replies that both of them have lived many lives. The difference is that he remembers all of them.
Ask the Gītā your own question.
Arjuna asked his. Samvāda answers yours with the Gītā's own verses.
Samvāda is software, an AI companion tuned to the Bhagavad Gītā. It is not a person. It answers from the verse and shows you which one, and it never pretends to be Kṛṣṇa.
The verses
Arjuna asks
BHAGAVAD GĪTĀ · 4.4अर्जुन उवाच
अपरं भवतो जन्म परं जन्म विवस्वतः।
कथमेतद्विजानीयां त्वमादौ प्रोक्तवानिति।।
arjuna uvāca aparaṁ bhavato janma paraṁ janma vivasvataḥ katham etad vijānīyāṁ tvam ādau proktavān iti
Arjuna said, "Your birth was later, and Vivasvan's birth was earlier. How then can I understand that you taught it in the beginning?"
Kṛṣṇa answers
BHAGAVAD GĪTĀ · 4.5श्री भगवानुवाच
बहूनि मे व्यतीतानि जन्मानि तव चार्जुन।
तान्यहं वेद सर्वाणि न त्वं वेत्थ परन्तप।।
śrī bhagavān uvāca bahūni me vyatītāni janmāni tava cārjuna tānyahaṁ veda sarvāṇi na tvaṁ vettha parantapa
The Lord said, "Many of My births have passed, O Arjuna, as have yours. I know them all, but you do not know them."
The count
4.4 is verse 166 of 700, and verse 4 of 42 in chapter 4.
Arjuna asks at 4.4 and Kṛṣṇa answers in the very next verse, 4.5.
Janma (birth), in any form, appears in 15 verses of the 700, first at 2.27 and last at 16.20.
Counted by Vāṇi on the 700-verse text at getvani.app/gita.
Going deeper
In chapter 4 Kṛṣṇa has said that he taught this yoga at the start to Vivasvān. 4.3 ends by calling it the same ancient yoga, given to Arjuna because he is a devotee and a friend. 4.4 is Arjuna's natural objection: your birth was later and Vivasvān's earlier, so how am I to understand that you taught him at the beginning? 4.5 is the reply: many of my births have passed, and yours too, Arjuna. I know them all, and you do not. The difference is memory, not the number of lives. 4.6 then says how he comes: though unborn and unchanging and the Lord of all beings, he takes birth by his own nature and his own will. The question people ask today about living more than once is answered here in a single line about knowing and not knowing. The whole teaching is in chapter 4, and what the Gītā says about death links related verses.